His mind wondered back to the days when he was a dishwasher at some restaurant in town. Those were fun days, he'd had a motorcycle and a couple girlfriends. There was one draw back though, he also remembered the waiters trying to get him alone in the walk-in so they could "talk". After a time his "gaydar" was honed to the point where he knew when someone was gay and trying to hit on him. His gaydar saved him from one or two potentially dangerous situations. But he also learned that just because someone was gay, did not mean they were any less of a man then a straight one. He made some friends with those guys.
Recently, Sally had told him that she did not like boys. In fact, she said she was seeing another girl and she thought it was fun to be with her girlfriend. Sam tried to take it in stride. Kammie, her girlfriend, was nice and Sam thought they looked comfortable together. Sally assured her father that they were not having sex. But, he had seen them snuggling and kissing goodnight, looking very comfortable. He tried to let it go, yet his mind kept getting stuck.
"So guys, what's this all about?" Sam thought he knew, but did not want to jump to any conclusions. He felt they needed to tell, clear the air. It was not really a confessional, but a catharsis. He nodded at some chairs. Sitting, Sam waited for one of the two to start talking. All he got was silence.
"So?" He prompted. Only doe eyed silence. "Come on, why are we here?"
Now it turned to teary eyed silence as their doe eyes liquified.
Finally Kammie said, "They beat the shit out of Andy. Now is he here and so are we. She, I mean he would be here for us..."
"She? Hmm, Sally made that same slip earlier. Is there something I should know? Kids don't go around beating people this bad for no reason. It almost sounds like they were trying to kill him, or were afraid of him somehow."
More silence, but their body language especially Sally's, told Sam the dam was about to break. This is the hardest time, waiting for them to find their words, he sat patiently.
Before the moment completely passed Sam said, "There is more to this than a locker-room beat down, right?" He tried to show as much compassion as he could without going over the top. It seemed to work a little, both girls seemed to relax some.
Sam waited some more. Finally Kimmie took a deep breath. Sam had to admit to himself that he wished it had been his daughter.
"Andy likes to call herself Mandy. We all call her Mandy. Mandy is short for..."
"Amanda, I know. Do you think Mandy was hurt because of that?" He took a deep breath of acceptance.
Good, now we have that hurtle passed. And the tears started flowing.
After a long moment, Sally was able to ask, "Did you know? How did you know?"
Sam sat back in his chair and thought about his answer. He took a deep breath, "I didn't really know, but I suspected it. Maybe the way Mandy dresses, maybe the slips everyone makes when talking about him?"
"HER!" came the immediate retort. "You need to say, 'her' when talking about Mandy. She thinks of herself as a girl even though she's in a boy's body."
"OK. I'll try. But you gotta remember I knew him as a boy until just now, OK? It will take a minute to get used to. So you think he--she, I mean," Sam saw both girls getting ready to jump on his missed pronoun. "So you think they beat Mandy because of all that?
"Well, yeah," was Sally's indignant reply. "considering what they were saying."
"Oh, I see. I'm thinking; 'queer,' 'freak,' 'fag,' That kind of thing?" That brought more tears and sobbing.
"And worse things. I'm not going to say them and I hope I never hear those awful words again!" said Kammie. Sally’s eyes were filling with tears, but she managed to nod at Kammie’s words. Sam thought, Me too, But life gives us a hard road to follow.
After a long sigh Sam managed, "Do you know what the doctors are saying?" Sam asked looking up.
While the three were talking, a big and burley man had entered the waiting room . Mandy's father walked into the patient lounge joining them. Worry lined the parents' face, his normally keen and excited attitude was muted. Anxiety lined his every movement, it filled his words. "Good news, bad news. How can there be anything good out of this shit? The Doctor says the good news is that there no serious internal injuries. Her Liver is bruised and stuff like that, nothing that can't be healed with time. That's the good news, I guess.
"A couple of ribs were broken, his---her ankle somehow got sprained and fingers were twisted badly." It was hard to see this strong man so visibly shaken. Sam had known Ed for many years, known him as a decisive and focussed man. They had gone fishing and hiking many times with the kids, yet today he was raw with anxiety and concern for his son(?)daughter.
This brought up another concern for Sam, did he know about his son's gender identification? Sam did not want to be the one to inform Ed about his son. Today was hard enough as it was.
Many's father kept going on, "They tell me the broken nose and cheekbones will heal with little scaring. One doctor said he did not think plastic surgery was going to be needed. I guess that's good." He pulled a bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his eyes, then nose.
Sam reached out to his friend's shoulder motioning the girls to stay behind. The two men sat in a corner facing each other. He could feel the anguish flowing from the man. "Why did this happen?" asked Sam, trying to gage what Ed knew about his son/daughter.
"Mandy wanted to try on a camisole under her shirt. It was the first time, that I know of, she had done this." Sam drew a slight sigh of relief. "You knew about this right, That my Andy thinks of herself as Mandy, right?" He could see that Ed was regaining some of himself.
"I had my suspicions Ed, but no one really ever told me."
Ed nodded, "I forgot that today was gym day. Having to change in the locker room." Ed sat up a little, "Remember that? It was like something we did to prove we were becoming men. I guess maybe Mandy had something else to prove, I dunno. They tell me that Mandy started to change and someone saw the camisole. I told her that we could make some kind of arrangement to change for gym, but she said no, not yet. I think she forgot about gym today, too. At least I hope so..."
Ed cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me a minute, I gotta use the head." Sam remembered that he had spent time in the Navy.
"Yeah, sure. I'll be here."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
No comments:
Post a Comment